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As the casket was carried out of the church, a group of New Orleans firefighters wearing dress blues snapped to attention and saluted, choking back tears.

View full size John McCusker, The Times-Picayune archive Gerry Crimmins, of the New York District Council of Carpenters Labor Technical College, signs a beam at Engine 38 fire house in New Orleans in August, 2009. The New Orleans Fire Department lost 22 of its 33 firehouses to Hurricane Katrina.

Despite their uniforms, the hero they were honoring was not a member of their ranks. At least not officially.

Gerry Crimmins, 51, was a New Yorker who came to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and managed to help rebuild 11 of the 22 firehouses damaged in the storm while bureaucrats dithered.

He died Oct. 21 of liver cancer.

“Gerry became one of us,” said NOFD Assistant Superintendent Timothy McConnell, one of several local firefighters who flew to New York City to pay tribute. “I don’t know how we could have kept this department together morale-wise if our guys were still working out of trailers.”

Crimmins, with his bald head and stocky frame, committed himself to New Orleans in the fall of 2006 after visiting his son, who studied at Loyola University. The devastation he saw stunned him. He flew back home and resolved to repair the wreckage with the skills he learned as a union carpenter and carpentry instructor.

Moved to volunteer

He learned that a firefighter foundation started by “Rescue Me” star Denis Leary had donated more than a dozen aluminum rescue boats to the NOFD, which had relied the personal boats of firefighters to rescue flood victims. Moved, Crimmins fired off an e-mail message to Leary’s foundation and offered his expertise and that of his union for any potential construction efforts.

Angela Coyle, who managed projects for the actor’s foundation, received Crimmins’ message and immediately phoned him. Start recruiting volunteers, she told him, because the foundation wants to rebuild the city’s damaged firehouses.

Crimmins solicited tools, drywall, cabinets and other supplies from vendors across the country. Then he rounded up 200 co-workers and students, as well as union carpenters in Louisiana, willing to donate their time. During the next couple of years, Crimmins flew to New Orleans 24 times to hammer, nail and drill alongside the volunteers.

As the hardest-hit firehouses were fixed, firefighters moved out of their temporary trailers. They responded to emergencies twice as fast. Residents were safer.

“Gerry had an energy … that charmed you,” said Chuck Brokmeier, a retired NOFD captain who volunteered to work at many of the houses. “If there was good in you somewhere, he brought it out.”

‘Not done’

The months just before and after the completion of the Leary Foundation project in August 2009 were among the happiest for Crimmins. He formed close friendships with McConnell and Brokmeier, who helped him manage the carpentry mission. His sons, Dereck and Austin, were excelling in college. He had fallen in love with Coyle, the project manager for the Leary Foundation. The two were engaged.

The couple even founded a charity-minded corporation in New York and dreamed about retrofitting the homes of paralyzed military veterans with wheelchair ramps, shorter counter tops, wider doorways and modified bathrooms.

In November 2009, while the couple was preparing for their wedding, Crimmins scheduled a medical check-up. Doctors discovered a cancerous tumor in his liver.

Surgeons removed Crimmins’ liver. He underwent three courses of chemotherapy and two courses of radiation treatment, but nothing worked. The disease spread to Crimmins’ kidneys, his lungs and his bones.

But “he was not done with New Orleans,” Coyle said. “Not at all.”

One more for New Orleans

As the end neared, Crimmins called McConnell and Brokmeier and asked them to find a children’s play spot that needed fixing.

The pair told Crimmins that Odile Davis Playground in the Desire area needed help badly. Crimmins, though weakened, recruited students and co-workers and flew them to New Orleans.

The carpenters put up new batting cages, new awnings and new bleachers, and renovated the bathrooms, during one week in May. The next time McConnell called Crimmins, Crimmins said, “So, what next?”

McConnell and Brokmeier visited Crimmins in New York twice during his illness to support him, but Crimmins died before they could launch another project.

Brokmeier and McConnell returned from Crimmins’ funeral early Wednesday. Sitting in an office at NOFD headquarters, the pair vowed to regularly lead volunteer restorations of playgrounds and blighted homes “to keep his spirit alive.”

Coyle, speaking by phone from New York, echoed their promise. She intends to keep running the corporation she and her fiance founded.

“Gerard had so much more he wanted to accomplish,” she said. “We will accomplish it for him.”

Ramon Antonio Vargas can be reached at rvargas@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3371.

If you are sitting on a million dollars or half a million dollars or even $200,000, you might consider getting advice from a financial adviser. With that kind of money, you’d want the best advice on how to grow your investment. During your first session with him you are going to go over your goals and ambitions, what assets you have, and when and how you plan to retire. With this information, your adviser will put together a plan to help you achieve your goals. You may put some of the money in stocks, some in bonds and some in annuities. At certain milestones you’ll change the funds from one place to another to maximize your return. Most of you will stick with your adviser for life, if he does a good job for you. Having a good financial adviser turns out to be a good move for you and your family.

We’ve all heard that most people’s homes are their largest assets. This is repeated in many ways, and in many circumstances. We’ve heard it so many times that it is rather a cliché of sorts, and we don’t give it that much thought. All we know is that when the time comes to sell our homes, we hope to get a good return on our investment.

So, how many of you have hired a financial adviser to protect your home, your largest asset in most cases? I’m guessing that very few have. Most live by the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule. When you think about this philosophy, as far as your house goes, it’s plain dumb. Take a look at car maintenance for instance. Do you perform routine preventative maintenance on it? Sure you do. You don’t want to be stranded on the side of the road somewhere. What if the airlines adopted that philosophy? Now that’s scary. Nobody would want to fly anymore. So why let your house rot, and then fix it. Why have your furnace fail on a cold night, and then fix it. Why let your home decrease in value when it could be increasing in value with routine maintenance.

I think you get my point by now. Routine maintenance on your home is very important, not only financially, but also in terms of your comfort and convenience. You need a trusted adviser to look over your entire home and see when certain parts of the home need to be replaced or serviced. You need to know when the repairs or maintenance will be needed and how much it will cost. It’s time to —– Adopt a contractor!

Just as you hired your financial adviser, you need to interview a few contractors and get references. She or he need to be experienced with all facets of your home. I would suggest a full service remodeler, possibly with design-then-build experience. They need to know what products are best, and how they should be installed and who should install them. A good contractor should be surrounded by experts in all fields. She or he should have built relations with the best in the business, so you get the best advice and service when it is needed.

Your home is a system. Everything in your home has to work together. Your home’s function is to keep you warm and dry, safe and comfortable at all times. It is an envelope that protects you from the outside world. Find a contractor that understands this; one that can see the big picture, and will guide you toward the best possible return on your investment. This should be a long term relation, so that your contractor becomes familiar with your home and your lifestyle and you know what to expect from your contractor. When you find such a person, life will be so much better. Now you can set up an annual budget for the future maintenance needs of your home and schedule them at your convenience.

Your contractor may not wear a suit and tie, but he may well be the most important financial adviser you’ve ever hired.

Republished by permission from Chattanooga Remodeler

So you’ve finally decided to remodel your kitchen, but can’t decide whether to go with custom built or stock cabinets. The first thing you need to consider is your project budget. A large portion of the money allocated for a kitchen renovation will be used for replacing the cabinets, as these are the most expensive part of your kitchen.

Because the cabinets are the most obvious parts of the kitchen decoration, you need to be sure that they will reflect the nature of your kitchen’s style, regardless of whether you buy stock or custom cabinets. However, as cabinets take up such a large portion of a kitchen remodeling budget, stock cabinets can be the best choice for rentals and flip homes. Or those wishing to see their money stretch a little farther and spent on other aspects of the renovation.

Because they’re mass produced, stock cabinets cost less. Custom cabinets require careful and individual care and lots of time to build, so they cost a bit more to produce. The quality can range from ok to absolute terrible for stock cabinets. We only carry brands that we can feel ok about being associated with. They are the upper line of import cabinets so they are not “Dirt Cheap” as some advertize. They are also limited in sizes, colors, and wood choices

Stock cabinets also can be delivered faster than custom built. Custom cabinets are built from the ground up and can take a couple weeks to complete. They take careful planning to prepare for and patience to wait for. Stock cabinets are built in standard sizes, wood choices, configurations and finishes, and are held in the manufacturer’s or the distributor’s inventory until they are ordered. This allows their shipping time to be cut down considerably. Once ordered by you, delivery can take as little as 24 hours for natural finishes and two weeks for upgrade finishes, which seriously lowers the turnaround time on a home renovation project. Installation time varies by the schedule that we are already running.

While stock cabinets may not be the suitable choice for all kitchens, for some they offer functionality, quality and style for less than the price of custom.

Just as a parting word of caution. While we distribute a higher quality import than most we sometimes loss track of the issues most stock cabinets have. When you are looking at stock cabinets be very aware of some of the less desirable traits. Like 3/8 particle board sides, Melamine drawers, and Photo finish doors and drawer fronts. Unfortunately these are the traits that most home centers are selling. Do they work? Yes. Are they going to last the long haul? Well that up to you.

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten” – Benjamin Franklin.

Time and time again Ive been asked about the uses of Richlite and Paper Stone. There are a lot of misconceptions out there on these products. Especially the price.

Lets start from the beginning. Richlite was originally developed for the boating industry. They produce a product called Whalelite for stringers on boats. They also produce a product called Skatelite for skate board parks.

From this came a need for an architectural product for home and commercial use.  Now Richlite is a parer based product and phenolic resins.

Richlite is a green product and you can read all of that here. http://www.richlite.com/countertop/faqenv.html#1

Richlite is used for counter tops, siding on buildings. Cabinet ends and many many more uses.

Fabrication is primarily the same as wood/solid surface. It will cut with carbide blades and can be routered with carbide bits. We prefer to use a cnc as much as possible. Sinks can be under mounted for a truly built in look. Under Counter tops on our web site you will see some examples of tops done with under mounted sinks.

Couple things you need to be aware of when working with Richlite or Paper Stone.  It is layers of paper. If you sand through it (high probability if you are not used to working with it) it will leave you with a ring pattern like throwing a rock into a puddle of water. There is no fix for this other than starting over with new material. There is no perfect way to seam this with out proper tools. Ie. Vacuum clamps, biscuit jointer and proper epoxy.

The surface needs to be sanded with a various grits of sand paper to get a smooth glass finish. Again being watchful for sand through.

As far as costs.

There is a lot of opinions running around out there in the internet. The truth is a 4′ x 8′ 1.25″ thick sheet will run you about $1200 with shipping.

We start at  $30 per sq foot fabrication/installation and go from there depending on holes, sinks, cook tops, etc. I had a gentleman complain that he knows he can get it done for under $20 a square foot because the internet said so. Since we are the only certified Fabricator in the State of Utah at this time we get the best pricing on the product. The sheet itself costs $37.5 per sq ft. Like they say.

Don’t believe everything you see on the internet.

For more information see www.richlite.com